1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a device for skinning the breast and back of a poultry part.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,338,704 a device for skinning beef tongues is disclosed in which a tongue to be skinned is placed on an infeed support surface, the longitudinal axis of the tongue extending parallel to the transport direction. The tongue is manually moved towards a blade with a cutting edge. The lower side of the blade faces a toothed, rotating gripping roller. A leading portion of the skin is biased into engagement with the teeth of the gripping roller and pulled into the blade. The tongue is pulled forward into the blade by the roller and the skin is sled from the side of the tongue facing the blade. To remove the skin from the other surfaces of the tongue, the tongue is re-oriented after each pass through the machine, to expose another surface to the skinning blade.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,998,323 a device is disclosed for skinning poultry parts to which the wings have been left, but the head, neck, legs and thighs have been removed. The device comprises a pair of parallel conveying chains for conveying the poultry parts towards a skinner unit. Outwardly from the path of the chain, each chain is provided with pairs of closely spaced vertically extending tabs, for receiving and suspending the wings of a poultry part there between. In operation, a poultry part supported by a support plate is simultaneously suspended to the tabs by positioning each wing between a pair of tabs, the body oriented neck up, back downstream. As the poultry body enters the device the tendons are cut and the wings are confined above by retaining rails, which prevent the wings from escaping. As the poultry body is advanced into the machine, its bottom contacts an auger whose conveying speed exceeds that of the chains. This moves the bottom of the bird body ahead of the wings and brings the body with the backs down to the back skinner. The backs are carried over a first toothed skinning roller, the teeth of which engage and remove the skin form the backs. A shear plate prevents the meat from continuing with the skin. The upper halve of the bird then clears the shear plate, swings downward and rearward while being suspended only by its wings and takes a back down orientation. The poultry body arrives in front of a second skinner in the back down orientation and passes over the second skinner to have the skin removed from the back. The operation of the second skinner is similar to the first. After having been skinned, the poultry body is engaged by a cone shape fixture that enters into the body cavity and supports the breasts to leave the device.
In the device of U.S. Pat. No. 4,998,323 the conveying chains are driven in an intermittent motion of regularly repeating cycles of a predetermined stroke length. Besides this, the operation of the device is quite complicated and puts a stiff demand on the positioning of the bird bodies by the device. After being supplied in a first orientation to allow skinning of the breast part, the birds become suspended to their wings to allow inverting their orientation to skin the back part. There is thus a need to a device with a simplified functioning.